In-Situ Measures of User's Preferred Listening Levels With a Portable Digital Music Device
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
10-26-2009
School
Speech and Hearing Sciences
Abstract
The recent development and popular use of personally worn digital music devices (PDMDs) have led to concerns about the intensity levels they produce. There is concern that users will set a PDMD to levels that are known to be hazardous to human hearing. The concern stems from the private nature of a PDMD in that insert earphones are worn that restrict the output to the user's ears, thus prohibiting monitoring of such devices by parents, teachers, employers, etc. This project measured the in situ dB SPL produced by PDMDs worn by 31 young adults (18-23 years) who had been wearing PDMDs for 3 years or less. Subjects set their PDMD to their preferred listening level (PLL) for a popular tune. Once set, in situ SPL measures of the tune at a reference point and then for a white noise were obtained with a probe microphone located near the eardrum. Hearing thresholds were also obtained. Results showed a range of 52-107 dB with a mean PLL of 83 dB for music and a range of 53-99 dB with a mean PLL of 79 dB for white noise. None of the subjects had significant hearing loss. © 2010 Acoustical Society of America.
Publication Title
Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics
Volume
8
Issue
1
Recommended Citation
Goshorn, E.,
White, K.,
Kemker, B.
(2009). In-Situ Measures of User's Preferred Listening Levels With a Portable Digital Music Device. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 8(1).
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/21145
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